Major General Philip Sheridan, commander of the Department of the Missouri, instituted winter campaigning in 1868 as a means of locating the elusive Indian bands of the region. Notable incidents in the campaigns from then until 1875 against the Indians in the border regions of Kansas, Colorado, New Mexico, and Texas were the nine-day defense of Beecher’s Island against Roman Nose’s band in September, 1868 by Major George A. Forsyth’s detachment;